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Remembered Today:

Why did men enlist in the first weeks of the war?


Jonathan Vernon

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Anything written as commentary in 1915 needs to be carefully put in context and compared to modern studies. The impact on the so called 'biologically' was nonexistent. In relevant terms too few men died - indeed we must constantly remember that most men of fighting age did not enlist and were not conscripted. 

Far the most fit enlisting, though there were plenty of those, actually as research of hundreds of Short Term Attestation Forms show, many men were underweight and not great physical specimens at all - too many were also found to have learning difficulties and psychological problems which soon deemed them 'unfit to be a soldier'.

 

Repeatedly the perspective of the war was written by and about a minority. In 1914 83% of the population was 'working class' - left school at 13 or 14 and enter general labour jobs that may have led to skilled labour, or they were unskilled, part-time or unemployed. The middle-class and upper-middle class, where in truth most of these 'fitter' men came from and around 14% of the population, also left school at 14, some had a year or two more, and went into clerical jobs. The 'upper-middle' class were educated in minor public schools, but were still unlikely to go to university. They fed the officer class out of expectation, not least that this schooling had prepared them to take command of others. Background meant they were better fed - sport was not as ubiquitous as it is now, other than as a spectator sport. Sport was the staple of the public school. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 4/15/2018 at 02:38, Jonathan Vernon said:

Anything written as commentary in 1915 needs to be carefully put in context and compared to modern studies. The impact on the so called 'biologically' was nonexistent. In relevant terms too few men died - indeed we must constantly remember that most men of fighting age did not enlist and were not conscripted. 

Far the most fit enlisting, though there were plenty of those, actually as research of hundreds of Short Term Attestation Forms show, many men were underweight and not great physical specimens at all - too many were also found to have learning difficulties and psychological problems which soon deemed them 'unfit to be a soldier'.

 

Repeatedly the perspective of the war was written by and about a minority. In 1914 83% of the population was 'working class' - left school at 13 or 14 and enter general labour jobs that may have led to skilled labour, or they were unskilled, part-time or unemployed. The middle-class and upper-middle class, where in truth most of these 'fitter' men came from and around 14% of the population, also left school at 14, some had a year or two more, and went into clerical jobs. The 'upper-middle' class were educated in minor public schools, but were still unlikely to go to university. They fed the officer class out of expectation, not least that this schooling had prepared them to take command of others. Background meant they were better fed - sport was not as ubiquitous as it is now, other than as a spectator sport. Sport was the staple of the public school. 

 

"The impact on the so called 'biologically' (sic) was nonexistent."

 

Without working out the figures based on birth rates since 1914 I would hazard a guess that over 10 million British were never born as a result of the WWI losses.

 

For my part I can't see that as a "non-existent" impact, but if you can explain your comment further I will be interested to hear.

Edited by 2ndCMR
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I have researched the Parish Council Meeting Minutes during WW1 of my rural village of Brixton Devon. It’s hard to find in them any reference that anything was going on outside of the Parish even though 98 of our parishioners went to war and 13 never returned including our own Parish Vicar who was killed in September 1915 whilst administering to the dead and wounded during the Battle of Loos. The parish council met regularly every 3 months during the GW and it appears it was business as usual. The only mention I could find of anything related the the war, posted below, was a request in September 1914 from the Lord Lt of Devonshire via the Rural District Council that the council actively encouraged young men to enlist. As you can see there was little enthusiasm to do this. Perhaps this reflects an earlier post that suggested farming communities were reluctant to release their farm labourers to the war effort.

 

845513D0-2180-4EDA-A985-E28ED994B3D2.jpeg

Edited by Lawryleslie
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My grandfather was working as an electrical engineer in the Argentine in 1914. He took ship on 4 Nov from Montevideo home to the UK, and joined up on 30 Nov

His brother was working in Australia, and set out for home via a more convoluted route - started off Sydney to Vancouver by ship; next found sailing New York to Liverpool on the Lusitania(!); arrived 10 Nov, and signed up alongside his brother on 30 Nov.

 

I always assumed it was a combination of patriotism and spirit of adventure.

 

 

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That’s a heck of a stretch, to suggest that the  scale of  voluntary enlistment in Britain caused greater social damage than in France and Germany....but it does give me pause for thought.

 

The notion that Britain suffered a disproportionate qualitative loss compared with her continental counterparts.

 

I must acknowledge that there is a uniquely strong sense of the destruction of the “ cream” of national manhood in British folklore of the Great War : but can that be reconciled with the statistical facts, when we consider that - quite apart from their vastly heavier absolute numbers of dead - both France and Germany lost twice as many in proportionate terms as Britain ?

  Editing here : this is in response to 2ndCMR’s post on the previous page.

Phil

Edited by phil andrade
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Well my maternal grandfather signed up aged 26 in mid September 1914. He had a son a couple of years old  and my grandmother was far from pleased (understatement). I don't know what his main reason for joining was, but a month or so later he was discharged as unfit, unlikely to make an adequate soldier. In earlish 1915 from what info I have he was back-in, was wounded at the Somme (sept 1916) was wounded at least once more (I have the hospital photos) and then returned to France September 1918 and was KIA three weeks later.

 

My grandmother never gave me any patriotic reasons for his serving - he just did his duty, fought for his comrades and pushed young boys over the top crying for their mothers - better to be shot by the enemy, not your own side. My lovely Gran was a widow 64 years and my mother was conceived on his last visit home and born 6 months after his death. He would never know he had a daughter.

 

For anyone who has not read The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker, I can thoroughly recommend them, having finished the last one this last week. Not any easy read, especially the first one, and you do need to read all three.

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On ‎17‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 12:51, saw119 said:

In which case I do wonder how alot of them felt in early '15?

"If you can`t take a joke, you shouldn't have joined" was the usual response in my day.:P

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On 15/04/2018 at 10:38, Jonathan Vernon said:

Anything written as commentary in 1915 needs to be carefully put in context and compared to modern studies. The impact on the so called 'biologically' was nonexistent. In relevant terms too few men died - indeed we must constantly remember that most men of fighting age did not enlist and were not conscripted. 

Far the most fit enlisting, though there were plenty of those, actually as research of hundreds of Short Term Attestation Forms show, many men were underweight and not great physical specimens at all - too many were also found to have learning difficulties and psychological problems which soon deemed them 'unfit to be a soldier'.

 

Repeatedly the perspective of the war was written by and about a minority. In 1914 83% of the population was 'working class' - left school at 13 or 14 and enter general labour jobs that may have led to skilled labour, or they were unskilled, part-time or unemployed. The middle-class and upper-middle class, where in truth most of these 'fitter' men came from and around 14% of the population, also left school at 14, some had a year or two more, and went into clerical jobs. The 'upper-middle' class were educated in minor public schools, but were still unlikely to go to university. They fed the officer class out of expectation, not least that this schooling had prepared them to take command of others. Background meant they were better fed - sport was not as ubiquitous as it is now, other than as a spectator sport. Sport was the staple of the public school. 

 

Jonathan,

 

How can it be that most men of fighting age did not enlist and were not conscripted ?

 

Perhaps I misunderstand you, or have failed to read your post carefully enough.

 

The men of fighting age comprised about one fifth of the entire population.  That implies nine million in 1914.  If five or six million served in the armed forces, then surely you’re wrong ?

 

Phil

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On 17/03/2018 at 12:51, saw119 said:

In which case I do wonder how alot of them felt in early '15?

 

"If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined" comes to mind?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 21/05/2018 at 08:13, phil andrade said:

That’s a heck of a stretch, to suggest that the  scale of  voluntary enlistment in Britain caused greater social damage than in France and Germany....but it does give me pause for thought.

 

The notion that Britain suffered a disproportionate qualitative loss compared with her continental counterparts.

 

I must acknowledge that there is a uniquely strong sense of the destruction of the “ cream” of national manhood in British folklore of the Great War : but can that be reconciled with the statistical facts, when we consider that - quite apart from their vastly heavier absolute numbers of dead - both France and Germany lost twice as many in proportionate terms as Britain ?

  Editing here : this is in response to 2ndCMR’s post on the previous page.

Phil

Quote

It was a real pleasure to do everything one could for these magnificent troops [of the 12th Division].  Their keenness was incredible and their thirst for information unquenchable.  When we had given them enough information to satiate an army corps, they merely asked for more....The first hundred thousand was the pick of the nation.  In this case again were demonstrated the defects of voluntary enlistment.  The best and keenest were the first to join and [tens of] thousands of men who would have been invaluable later as officers and N.C.O.s, met their deaths as private soldiers.  Magnificent perhaps, but certainly not war.

From Chauffeur to Brigadier, pps. 128-129.

 

The damage was enormous in all cases, but an all-volunteer force necessarily includes only those who were courageous and/or adventurous enough to volunteer.  They were also disproportionately a group motivated by altruistic or "higher" goals or concerns.  A man whose greatest concern is his own security and enjoyment avoids such deprivations and dangers as far as possible.  The latter group is probably the majority of any society on a biological basis, and in moral terms also, barring the long and careful inculcation of other values, and their enforcement by social pressure.

 

It is obvious and indisputable that an all-volunteer force will in a war with heavy casualty rates, cause a significant diminution of that proportion of the population willing to volunteer for the dangers and hardships of military service.   The degree of that diminution obviously depends on the duration of the war, the casualty rates, and how long volunteerism remains the only source of recruits.  The disproportionate loss of a more altruistic segment of a nation's population can only be harmful, as obviously is the loss of a disproportionate number of the physically fit.

 

The letters of the German general being translated in another thread here make mention even in 1914 of what the writer considered a "lack of moral fibre" in some formations and classes of soldiers.  A case could certainly be made that the all-volunteer nature of the British Empire forces was a decided advantage in moral terms in the first years of the war, and even that this helped to compensate for the deficiencies of numbers, equipment, training and leadership in those forces, compared to the German conscript armies.

 

We all know and recognize immediately that as individuals we vary greatly in our abilities, physiques and moral or intellectual strengths.  Why it should be difficult to admit that the sifting out of the most fit and willing of a society and their disproportionate destruction before most of them can reproduce is harmful to that society, I do not know.  We all know that our characteristics are mostly our biological inheritance.  But perhaps the implication that we who look back are the descendants of what was left, by luck, evasion or unfitness, has something to do with that?

 

Perhaps also an aversion to admitting the realities that underlay much of what was called "eugenics", thanks to the ridiculous and criminal extrapolations made from those simple Darwinian truths by the Nazis and others.  It is often forgotten now that such ideas were probably even more popular on the left than on the right for most of the 19th and 20th centuries.  One would hope that we might find a more honest and frank understanding in the 21st Century, but intellectual honesty seems to be on the wane rather than the increase.

 

A nation's ultimate resource is its people; ultimately it's only resource.  Who and what they are determines that nation's development and history as surely as it does an individual's; the most casual look around a town or the world demonstrates this undeniably, however unpopular that fact is with our latter-day "levellers".  The laws of attraction and reproduction remain what they have always been in the human and animal worlds, political correctness notwithstanding. 

 

What for example is an "elite" formation?  A collection of soldiers of a superior type.  They are assembled in the expectation that their personal superiority will enable them to achieve superior results as a group hopefully greater than the sum of their individual merits, and they usually do.   Likewise a sports team, but this is all so utterly obvious it is pointless to belabour it further.

 

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2ndCMR,

 

Thanks for your response.

 

Didn’t the French and German people also yield up their fittest and finest to the slaughter ?

 

I do take your point : a system that flourishes by way of volunteering will, by its very nature, entail a disproportionate reliance on those cohorts.  The fate of the pals battalions comes to mind. In that sense, Britain did cut disproportionately into its elites in the earlier part of the war.

 

Taking the duration into account, and countenancing the fact that Franco German death rates per capita were twice as high as that of the British, I cannot conceive how they could have avoided the qualitative damage that Britain sustained, even if standardised conscription swept away the mediocre with the finest.

 

The culling of British elites 1914-18 notwithstanding, the ensuing generation produced a form of warmaking that focused sacrifice even  more intensely on small contingents : Bomber Command being the example that first comes to mind.

 

Phil

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 17 March 2018 at 12:21, saw119 said:

And how many regretted signing up so early soon after? I am also interested in these early volunteers as well at the moment. Been researching my wife's GF who signed up about mid August '14 (G/264 in 11th Middx). Of course he spent a long time being trained and equipped and didn't embark for France until 31/5/15.

 

I know of a man Cecil Roy East 1463 an obviously keen volunteer, who joined the 1st Btn Honourable Artillery Company on 24 August 1914 and embarked for France on 18 Sep 1914, 3 weeks 3 days from civilian to soldier on service in France. He was killed in action on 13 May 1915 at Mount Kemmel and is buried in Voormezeele cemetery in Flanders

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Another 1st HAC man was Albert Victor Jones, a Welsh-born solicitor practising in London.  He was single and aged 27 when he enlisted on 25 August 1914 as Private 1519.  Overseas again three weeks later on 18/19 September, and killed by a sniper at Wulverghem on 25 November, exactly three months after enlisting.  

 

In his case he did have some OTC Cadet service as a boy at The Leys School, but there isn't any information either way re. Senior OTC membership at King's College Cambridge.  I wonder whether that boyhood OTC spell was enough to classify him as virtually trained enough to go overseas? 

 

At any rate he can stand as an example of a middle-class professional man without close family ties, who was prepared to join up three weeks after war was declared (and undertake the Imperial Service obligation).  

 

Clive

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When Guest was looking at some details a couple of years ago regarding date of enlistment v date of entry we cooperated on some of the work - there was a reasonable number of men who had been sent out to the front in non-specialist infantry roles with no prior evidence of any service, in some cases within a few days or weeks.

 

Craig

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23 hours ago, clive_hughes said:

n his case he did have some OTC Cadet service as a boy at The Leys School, but there isn't any information either way re. Senior OTC membership at King's College Cambridge.  I wonder whether that boyhood OTC spell was enough to classify him as virtually trained enough to go overseas? 

 

 

As an aside I joined the cadets at 12 and officially left at 18. I joined my TA unit at 17, due some strange circumstances I was "fully trained soldier" 3 months later. At the time passing the 4 star award in the cadet force and exam in the TA unit allowed you to skip basic training for the TA. For a short while the youngest qualified TA in the country, had to obtain permission to go to Gib! 

Thus I would say junior OTC training goes a long way. 

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  • 10 months later...
On 01/06/2018 at 04:03, phil andrade said:

2ndCMR,

 

Thanks for your response.

 

Didn’t the French and German people also yield up their fittest and finest to the slaughter ?

 

I do take your point : a system that flourishes by way of volunteering will, by its very nature, entail a disproportionate reliance on those cohorts.  The fate of the pals battalions comes to mind. In that sense, Britain did cut disproportionately into its elites in the earlier part of the war.

 

Taking the duration into account, and countenancing the fact that Franco German death rates per capita were twice as high as that of the British, I cannot conceive how they could have avoided the qualitative damage that Britain sustained, even if standardised conscription swept away the mediocre with the finest.

 

The culling of British elites 1914-18 notwithstanding, the ensuing generation produced a form of warmaking that focused sacrifice even  more intensely on small contingents : Bomber Command being the example that first comes to mind.

 

Phil

 

 

In belated reply to your comment, as you know both countries had universal military service before WWI, as Britain would have had if Lord Roberts and his supporters had had their way.  As a result the wheat and the chaff of their military classes were conscripted together, trained together and served and suffered together.  The Germans of course stood mostly on the defensive while the French and British generals bled their countries white in the repetitive and largely futile bloodbaths which some modern historians are now telling us were most sagacious.

 

The damage must have been the greatest in the British case obviously with an all-volunteer force until 1916.   With a much larger, and faster growing population (65 million vs. Britain's 42 million) Germany  could afford much larger numerical losses without suffering the same biological damage.

 

For France of course the war was her swan-song.  The chickens of revolution, civil war and most of all Napoleon's wars of aggression, came home to roost: her population increased by a miserable 29%  between 1810 and 1910, while Britain and Germany stood at 116% and 190% respectively.  Germany in 1914 had 65 million people, Britain 42 and France just 36.   
 

The effect is easily illustrated: if from such reservoirs each country loses a million men, who will have suffered more?

 

The moral effect of the war on the countries concerned is of course another vast topic; but we all know the jist of it, or should: Germany refusing to admit her defeat and hungry to try again, Britain and France financially, physically and morally exhausted and desperate to avoid a repetition, while the Dominions of the British Empire if they failed to see the feet of clay in South Africa have seen cracks in them from 1915-1919, and not only in the feet. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by 2ndCMR
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Thanks for resurrecting this topic, 2nd CMR.

 

Demographic fragility, both real and imagined, was apparent in the war and its legacy.

 

France was undoubtedly more traumatised than either Germany or Britain in this respect.

 

This, however, should not obscure the statistical reality that German losses were much the same -  in proportionate terms - as those of France.  Metropolitan France, from a 1914 population of 39 million , lost one in thirty : Germany, from 65 or 66 million, also lost one in thirty.  This does not allow for civilian mortality, which must have impinged on Germany severely.  The United Kingdom’s forty five million people counted military fatalities that represented “ only” one in sixty of its population .

 

The shock suffered by the French was, I believe , compounded by the horrific experience of losing a disproportionately large number of men in the opening encounters : in a six week period between later August and later September 1914, about fifteen per cent of all the Frenchmen who were killed in the entire 220 weeks of fighting....and this, of course, in a desperate attempt to keep an invader at bay, which entailed warfare on home soil....a large part of which fell under German occupation. This awful, intense spasm of fatality was accompanied by a commensurate loss in prisoners : about one third of all the French soldiers captured in the entire war  were taken in those six weeks...something which is not mentioned enough.

 

German deaths were far more evenly spread throughout, which might, for reasons I find hard to account for,  have lessened  impact in psychological terms.

 

For the British, this spread was very distorted, with the great preponderance of deaths ( more than three quarters? ) occurring from July 1916 onwards.  To a large degree, this entailed the loss of conscripted men, although the biggest carnage of the Somme in 1916 was to be inflicted on volunteer cohorts.

 

The Germans conducted offensive warfare in both West and East in 1914 ; in 1915 they were on the offensive in the East ; in the first half of 1916 they resumed the strategic offensive in the West ; and in later 1917 they resumed it in the East. The first half of 1918, of course, saw the  resumption of all out German offensive in the West .

 

I mention this because I think people too readily accept the view that the Germans were usually  on the defensive : in the West, they were, in a sense, always on the offensive because they were the invaders occupying Franco Belgian soil, and did all they could to render their tenure as aggressive as possible, provoking counter attacks by dint of harassment, in circumstances that conferred advantage of terrain on the invaders.

 

Phil 

Edited by phil andrade
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Three stories from my family history.

One member of the family, a documented alcoholic, joined in 1914. He was mysteriously discharged after less than 3 months service, all in the UK. He re-enlisted under a different name in the spring of 1915, to impress his future wife. He lasted 3 months again, and the surviving service record has an angry note from an RAMC officer stating "This man is a hopeless alcoholic" or words to that effect. Rather than diplomatically "letting go" volunteers who had fulfilled their patriotic duty by enlisting, it looks like diplomacy went out of the window in 1915, and reasons for discharging individuals were documented, to prevent them re-enlisting.

Another family member joined up, 1358 William Fosh. He had distinctive tattoos which could have worked against him (more later). He is understood to have joined up to take part in the adventure, and to be home by christmas, as a hero. As of April 1915, he was still in Winchester. He hadn't signed up for this, so he deserted. He moved to a different part of London, borrowed his brother-in-law's uniform and married his girlfriend. Everyone assumed he was a medically discharged war hero, and his service record shows that the army never did find him.

He had a distant cousin, Sidney Fosh, who performed a Reserved Occupation, using surgical steel to make medical implements, and was relatively well paid for this skilled profession. He did not join up, but a colleague did. (I do not know when he volunteered.) Eventually, his former colleague reappeared at the workshop, in khaki. Having learned of his trade, he was returned to his former employer to perform war work, albeit on the pay of a private, and was bitter about his wartime experience.

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1 hour ago, Keith_history_buff said:

 "This man is a hopeless alcoholic" or words to that effect. 
 

 

'Hopeless'?

 

I'd say he was quite good at it.

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For any senior NCO of many years, performing recruit training, they must have thought they had seen it all up to 1914, and come across all sorts of persons who were not suitable soldier material who voluntarily enlisted in 1914 and 1915.

I'l throw in a curved ball here. I have seen numerous Lancashire men who joined the Royal Naval Auxiliary Sick Berth Reserve in 1914. As I anecdotally recall, they seemed to be Methodists or linked to St John's Ambulance. It seemed they were not keen on killing people, but thought the best way to serve their deity and their country was to perform medical services. 

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The 38th (Welsh) Division's Field Ambulances were St John Ambulance personnel, I believe.

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'To a large degree, this entailed the loss of conscripted men',

 

I was always under the impression that in 1914 it was a professional army.  In 1915 it was a mixture of territorials and survivors from the old professional army.  In 1916 the Army was dominated by Kitchener volunteers with a  leavening of survivors from the old professionals and territorials.  The battles of 1917 were largely fought by the survivors of Kitchener's volunteers and not until late 1917/1918 could it be said that the British Army was largely comprised of conscripts. 

 

Was the conscripted element much large than I have hitherto given credit ?    

Edited by Hyacinth1326
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Hyacinth,

 

Taking the loss of life suffered by the British nation from 1 July 1916 until the Armistice, it must be the case that many of the dead were conscripted men.  I take your point : the Kitchener men were still taking a lot of punishment in the second half of the war.....but a lot of men died from late 1917 until the end, and it follows that this did indeed entail the loss of conscripted men. I don’t know the numbers, but I would like to find out.

 

Phil

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9 hours ago, Hyacinth1326 said:

'To a large degree, this entailed the loss of conscripted men',

 

I was always under the impression that in 1914 it was a professional army.  In 1915 it was a mixture of territorials and survivors from the old professional army.  In 1916 the Army was dominated by Kitchener volunteers with a  leavening of survivors from the old professionals and territorials.  The battles of 1917 were largely fought by the survivors of Kitchener's volunteers and not until late 1917/1918 could it be said that the British Army was largely comprised of conscripts. 

 

Was the conscripted element much large than I have hitherto given credit ?    

I have some 3000 sets of service records, and of those that were not immedaitly posted to a unit, the rest had all been attested by December 1915. In early 1918 they were called up, even Coal Miners who were realy in a protected trade. Our local Pals Battalion lost more men in early 1918 than at the Somme in 1916, but by that date they were no longer a Pals Battalion, not enough survived the Somme.

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Hi Phil  and Retlaw

I am not questioning your assertions that 'a lot of men died from late 1917 until the end'(I know your posts too well to do that), rather I am questioning my own pre-conceptions as laid out above.  It would be good to know more about the late 1917 conscription ratio relative to Kitchener men.  Harry Patch was a 1917 conscript as we all know.  There must have been many like him (and perhaps just as disgruntled).

Edited by Hyacinth1326
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